


1950

by ClockworkDinosaur (orphan_account)



Category: Steam Powered Giraffe
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-09
Updated: 2016-04-09
Packaged: 2018-06-01 04:16:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6500437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/ClockworkDinosaur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A lot happened to the Walter family in 1950, and none of it was good.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1950

**Author's Note:**

> This is another older fic that I posted on Tumblr (http://officialnukacola.tumblr.com/post/130837401424/1950) and there are a few timeline inconsistencies that I didn't think of at the time of writing.

It hadn’t been a good night for Rabbit. It rarely was a good night when she was alone with her thoughts, but this night was much worse than usual, her doubts and memories rising to the forefront of her mind unbidden.

Her clothes, her room, even the manor itself were all far too constricting. She buzzed with nervous energy, mismatched blue-and-green eyes darting around as she paced her room.

Something was wrong. _Everything_ was wrong. It was more than her normal discomfort with herself that had been building up for years and seemed to flare up when she caught her own reflection as she passed a mirror, or when The Spine called her “one of the guys.” This was something outside of her own body and mind. But she couldn’t figure out what exactly was giving her this notion.

With an anxious hiss of steam from her black lips, she quietly left her room, careful not to make a noise as she passed her brothers’ rooms. She thought she was in the clear when a voice piped up behind her.

“Rabbit? Where ya going, can I come?” The Jon asked, his blue eyes wide in the gloom of the dark hallway.

“Nah, Th’Jon, I’m just go-go-goin’ for a walk.” she said, disguising her uncomfortable grimace as a grin. “D-d-don’t worry ‘bout me, just… need to get some air I g-g-g-guess.”

“We don’t breathe.” he responded, confused.

“I need to be _alone_.” she snapped. Her face softened when she registered the hurt on her younger brother’s golden face.

“Tomorrow though. You an’ me can go for a w-w-walk at the park, whaddya say?” she asked. The Jon nodded enthusiastically.

“G’night, Rabbit!” he said, going back into his room.

The grin fell from her face as soon as he was gone. Quickly she left the manor, the chilly fall air making steam cloud around her even more than usual in the night. Without thinking, she headed toward the Walter Cemetery’s pond, the bushes and trees surrounding it brilliantly red and orange with falling leaves.

She stood at the shore of the lake for a minute before hesitantly heading to where Peter Walter I and his wife Iris were buried.

“Hey Pappy. Hey Ma.” she said at the foot of their graves.

At first she wasn’t quite sure what death _really_ meant. For months after Pappy had died, she’d expected him to walk back into his lab, to continue his work. So she waited there every day for him. There was just enough time for Ma to explain that Pappy would never be coming back before she was gone as well.

After that, Rabbit understood.

She wasn’t quite sure why she’d decided to visit their graves. Seeing their names etched in stone always sent a flare of pain through her core that seemed to make the grinding of her gears almost painful. She shook her head and backed up, deciding on a whim to sit by the edge of the pond and take in the silence.

Before she could turn around, she heard the soft buzzing behind her, just before the gears in her limbs locked up and ground to a stop, sending her crashing face-first to the ground.

For a few panicked moments she couldn’t move, her arms and legs locked close to her body as she stared at the dirt. She heard muffled words behind her as two heavy pairs of footsteps approached her on both sides. She struggled to bring out one of her weapons, to stand an run, to do anything as they flipped her around onto her back.

“We stunned him! Get the tools out!” one voice barked in the darkness, his face hidden in shadow.

It took all of her willpower, but she was able to mover her fingers, then her wrists. With an inhuman growl, she bent her wrist back, the deadly bronze buzz-saw folded out, stopping the two men for a moment. 

“Put that away, or your brothers are going to get the same treatment. And we won’t leave _them_ in one piece.” one man threatened. Rabbit’s core went cold as she imagined The Spine and The Jon, shattered and torn apart, too broken to be fixed.

And it would be all her fault.

She folded the buzz-saw away, before attempting to scoot away from the men in a desperate escape attempt, ready to scream or call out for help before being electrocuted again, her gears locking still.

“Get his core now. This won’t be so effective in stopping him again.” one man warned the other. With a nod, one man tore open the bottom of Rabbit’s shirt, revealing the panel underneath her metal ribs that held her Blue Matter core. Quickly he had the panel unbolted and her core exposed. She tried to force her stiff limbs to move, to grab the man and choke the life out of him before he could steal hers-

But just as her fingers began to twitch, the man had grabbed her core and pulled, separating it from the chassis.

Rabbit’s eyes stopped glowing as her limbs fell heavily to the ground with finality. Without another word, the men stole away into the night, the life-force of Rabbit clutched in their hands.

* * *

It was mid-morning before The Spine found Rabbit, laying between the graves of their inventor and his wife, eyes staring dully to the sky.

His shouts were easily heard from the manor, and soon the engineers came to collect Rabbit’s empty chassis, watching grimly as he begged his older sibling to wake up, to move, to say something.

And he could only watch as the empty copper automaton was carried on a stretcher into the manor, the Walter Workers already buzzing with questions.

* * *

The Spine and The Jon hovered in the back of the lab as the Engineers buzzed and prodded at Rabbit.

It was hours before anyone could draw any sort of conclusion.

Peter Walter II approached the gold and silver automatons grimly.

“Rabbit’s core seems to have been taken. Stolen. Most likely by the damned Beciles.” He spat the name like it burned his tongue.

“Can we get it back?” The Jon asked fearfully.

“We will stop at _nothing_ to get it back.” Peter swore.


End file.
